FoodB

The Simply Recipes website is my new crack. We have made 2 things from them now and I have really enjoyed both.

The second dish we made was the stuffed zucchini recipe below. I saw it come across my RSS reader and when I saw the picture of the finished product, I really wanted to try it. Was a little difficult convincing Jenn that this wouldn't be another one of my disaster project recipes. I find that for every three recipes I try to take on, Usually one of them is good. I know, enough talk, get to the food!

Stuffed Zucchini with Turkey Sausage

1 zucchini about 12 inches long, or 6 medium ones
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
2 tablespoons dry white wine
1 pound ground turkey
2 diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper

1. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Scoop out insides, leaving shells about 1/4 inch thick. Reserve about half of the insides.
2. Heat 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat. Sauté onion and garlic until soft. Add mushrooms and reserved zucchini insides, and sauté another 2 minutes.
3. In a separate skillet heat a Tbsp of olive oil on medium high heat. Add the ground turkey. Lightly brown the turkey, stirring only occasionally. After the turkey browns on one side, stir it so that it has a chance to brown on other sides. Cook until the ground turkey is lightly browned, about 6 minutes. Stir in the onion and mushroom mixture from the other pan. Add the wine. Stir in tomato, basil and rosemary and cook 1 minute longer. Drain any excess fat. Remove mixture from heat and set it aside.
4. When mixture has cooled, add cheese, egg, salt and pepper. Fill zucchini shells with mixture. Fill a baking pan with 1/4 inch of water. Place filled zucchini halves in pan and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes, until golden brown. Remove zucchini from pan and serve while hot.

Good stuff! I thought that hollowing out the zucchinis was going to be a nightmare. Boy was I surprised when I had finished the job in 10 minutes. We omitted the mushrooms from this dish because the 'shrooms just ain't my thing. We had plenty of leftovers on this one also.

One thing we discussed afterwards was the choice of meats. Ground turkey is alright, it just tends to dry out very easily. Jenn and I both agree that this recipe would have gone better with either ground chicken or chicken sausage. I think it might be good with ground pork as well but Jenn usually knows better when it comes to stuff like substituting. This one is definitely a keeper and I have yet to find a recipe with zucchini that I don't like.